Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe has said that he hopes his players' confidence levels have not taken too much of a battering ahead of a "significant" period of the season.
The Cherries have had to navigate a tough run of fixtures over the past 10 days, losing to Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and now Manchester City in league and cup.
Premier League leaders City scored four unanswered goals on Saturday afternoon to leave the Cherries in the bottom three of the division, one point adrift of West Ham United in 17th.
With home games against West Ham United and Everton to come in quick succession next week, as well as a trip to Brighton & Hove Albion on New Year's Day, Howe is hoping for a big response.
"Those games will take on even more significance," he told Sky Sports News. "We came here trying to get something but we knew it would have been incredibly difficult and we have to look at these games [against United, Chelsea, Liverpool and City] as one-offs because of the quality of opposition we were playing.
"We had an incredibly tough run but my hope is the players have come through it okay and we're ready to go into an important spell for us. I thought we did okay. It was a huge task for us today, not just the team we were facing but also the injuries we've got.
"We were okay in the game until we conceded the first goal, which was our own doing, and it was hugely frustrating with the game plan we had. From then on it is difficult. The second goal is the killer for us. We still had a go to try to chase it and then opened ourselves up to concede a couple more."
Bournemouth have now failed to score in three consecutive Premier League games for the first time since January 2016.
Daniel Lewis
